


Live This Life Twice (If You’ll Let Me)

by RedHead



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F, Not beta-read, Past Lives, Pining, Prompt Fill, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5164469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHead/pseuds/RedHead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill from tumblr: Lisa/Iris + realizing they’re reincarnated lovers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live This Life Twice (If You’ll Let Me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IrreverentFangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrreverentFangirl/gifts).



Iris decided this whole thing was a little above her pay grade.

There was a meta-human, one terrorizing Central City, with some ability that allowed them to look into the past and then travel to other times and, according to Cisco, specifically to their own _past lives_. Iris had thought that was a hard pill to swallow, but the time traveller was going back and forth, taking bodies from their former lives—male and female, young and old, different ethnicities—so it was becoming impossible to track them, and Cisco complained that the entire timeline was in peril thanks to this person.

Cisco’s powers were coming in handy—something about the vibrations of the timeline—and he was starting to see where and when the meta was showing up in history. But that still left the challenge of tracking the meta across time and stopping them mid-jump, which according to Dr. Stein was the best way to stop them for good. Together, Barry’s friends managed to create a device with a little help from Mercury labs that would allow Cisco to amplify that power so that he could share them with others, allowing people to visit their past lives—so long as those lives were ones at the same points of history that the meta was messing with—and that would allow the team to track this person. The more people whose past lives were visited, the greater chance they would have of finding the meta on their next jump, if they timed things right.

After that, Iris understood that some time travel would be involved, and she was wary but tried not to worry about it, mostly hoping she wasn’t going to the be the one asked to travel back in time. That was going to be the lucky winner of whoever found the meta in their ‘jump’.

But right now, she was here to support Barry and his friends—and to save the world, she supposed. So she was sitting on a cushion in STAR Labs as more and more people who knew Barry and the Flash filtered in to help. Caitlin explained to her that the more different and diverse people involved, the better the chances of tracking and finding the meta. That explained the presence of so many of the Rogues—the Snart siblings, Hartley Rathaway, and even Shawna Baez—and people from Star City as well. It was weird, but again, all Iris had to do was be present, so she didn’t complain.

At least, not until Cisco’s powers started, his device started to work, and her world tilted on its axis.

 

[ ]

 

Lisa didn’t mind helping Team Flash every now and then—they could be trusted, they were always willing to help the Rogues, and they were always easy and fun to wind up. To be fair, she’d never expected to sit in a room of so many strangers and close her eyes and wait for visions of past lives, but then, she didn’t mind something totally out there, at least every now and then. She also didn’t mind sitting across from such a gorgeous woman, with dark skin and crimson lips and a sense of style to kill for. It was a shame she hadn’t been able to catch the woman’s eye before the visions started rolling in, because Lisa loved to flirt.

Cisco had warned them all it wouldn’t be like watching TV—that they would feel _there_. That was an understatement.

She was in ancient Rome, running a message. Her heart beat fast and she fell forward in time. She was a soldier on the other side of the globe—her breath went out of her when an arrow pierced her body’s chest. She was on a boat, heading to a new world. She was dying of consumption on a farmstead. She was living lives in a moment, snatches of memory, days passing in seconds, living, breathing, _feeling_. Her lovers, her children, her parents, her sorrow, her elation, her peace—but it was all too _fast_.

She couldn’t get a read or more than glimpse of any life, like a race in time, until she landed in a woman’s body in the 1910’s, in New York City. She was waiting for someone—a knock at the door. Would this be the meta-human? Cisco had told them that if they encountered anyone they knew in these visions, they would know who it was, that the retroactive knowledge would transfer across time thanks to his powers. She went to the door, her past self’s heart beating like crazy. And there was another woman there, beautiful and smiling, and Lisa _did_ know who it was—but it wasn’t the meta-human. It was the woman sitting across from her at STAR Labs.

But her past self was playing through the actions—actions that happened a hundred years ago, to Lisa. She a passive participant in the memory, in the timeline, as she scooped up the other woman and twirled her around, as the woman threw her arms around Lisa and kissed her deeply, as they spent the afternoon sharing lazy kisses and warm smiles and never leaving bed, reunited at last after months apart. The memories played on and the knowledge was there, peripheral in the vision, of the former-Iris at work across the state, of long periods of time apart, of stolen moments throughout years to get them to here.

And then she was back in STAR Labs, gasping for breath alongside everyone else in the circle. Cisco was standing in the middle and someone else—some blond woman from Star City—was jumping excitedly and saying she knew where the meta was _right now_. Iris didn’t hear her. She didn’t have eyes for anyone but the woman across from her, who was staring straight back, lips parted in shock.

Next to her, Lenny nudged Lisa’s side and she started, looked at her brother. He was the one who’d convinced her to come to this weird ritualistic gathering. The room was already a flurry of activity and chaos, and Lenny was giving her a look that to anyone else would seem flat and neutral, but to Lisa carried notes of worry.

“See anything interesting?” he asked, quiet as the Flash’s team moved around them. Lisa glanced at Iris and then away quickly.

“What’s not to find interesting about a thousand years of history?” she said easily, knowing he’d catch the deflection and not really caring. “You stay and have fun with your new friends, Lenny, I’ve got places to be.”

He didn’t argue, not around these people. She knew there would be a conversation later, but tried not to think about it as she stood up and headed for the door.

 

[ ]

 

Iris tried to reign in her surprise. First at the intensity, the veracity of the visions, of the experience of seeing past lives played out and lived and _felt_. It was just snippets, moments, but it left her breathless.

But more than that, she was shocked at Lisa, at actually having seen someone she knew, and at having _known_ her in such a way. It was—it _felt_ —beautiful. Amazing. Like all the moments in life that she had always wanted to have with a partner, had once dreamed of having with Eddie, all the ups and downs, the tears and the laughter, the silly jokes and the working hard at making it work. And that was just the glimpses.

And when her eyes met Lisa’s across the circle, Iris felt her stomach clench, her throat tighten, her whole body _ache_ for another moment in those memories.

Lisa left the cortex without looking back and Iris sat, dumbfounded for all of a minute, trying to decipher what to do. But there was chaos here, Leonard Snart was giving her a weird look, and she wasn’t a coward, wasn’t afraid to jump off a ledge.

She ran after Lisa, who apparently moved fast in those high heels because she was most of the way to the doors before Iris caught up with her.

“Lisa!”

The woman stopped, and twirled around with a patented smile in place. It was tight at the edges but at least it was trying.

“You know my name?”

Her voice was high and controlled and Iris’s heart beat hard, trying to figure out what she even wanted to say. “Of course, I’m friends with B—with the Flash. He’s told me about you.”

“All bad, I’m sure,” she threw her hair over her shoulder and her smile was sharper and Iris… Iris wanted to see that smile relax. That was too much to contemplate right now though, and she fought back the urge to overthink. Iris was always one to trust her gut, to trust her heart, so she stepped forward, stopping a foot from Lisa, a tentative smile on her face.

“Not all bad,” she tried. “I’m Iris, Iris West.”

“West,” the smile dropped. Iris’s own smile faltered.

“You know my dad, but that’s not—”

“We don’t need to do this, Iris. It was another life.”

“It was but it—you know how it felt, how it…” Iris stopped trying to talk, shaking her head, half smiling and half terrified, eyebrows drawn up and together. The other woman, Lisa, was looking at her with an expression that bordered on cold, something so unlike the coy mask Iris had seen her wear most times they ended up in the same room.

“It was another life,” she said, and pushed open the door, her stilettos taking her out into the light drizzle of rain.

After a moment of indecision, a second to wonder if she was being insane, Iris ran after her. “Lisa, wait!” She had no idea if she was going to regret this, but Lisa stopped and Iris’s heart unclenched just a little. “Why don’t we—we could get coffee?”

Lisa looked ready to roll her eyes, a hand on her hip, rain landing on her forehead, “the only reason you want to get to know me is because of a past life. We were obviously different people then.”

Iris bit her little, forcing down the hurt in her throat, trying to smile through the sting, “that’s not the only reason. I could… I could use another friend, someone different, who gets all this Flash and meta-human stuff but isn’t…” she tried to find the word.

“A genius scientist?”

Iris laughed, “right. Or a CEO, or another _cop_. I know too many cops.”

Lisa relaxed a little, enough for her to look considering, arching an eyebrow and saying in her high, tinkling voice, “so your solution is to make friends with criminals?”

“To make friends with someone new."

"Well since you’re offering, Iris—I suppose a coffee wouldn’t be too bad.”

“It’s a date.” Iris couldn’t quell the grin on her face, or the warmth in her chest.

 

[ ]

 

Iris was mesmerizing. If Lisa had to choose one word to describe her, that would be it. Mesmerizing. It was hard not to get lost in her eyes, in that smile. She tried to tell herself it was just their past-life vision, tried to convince herself she was romanticizing the whole thing, but the way Iris glanced down shyly into her coffee, the way her red nails wrapped around the mug and matched her lipstick, the way she laughed like she _meant_ it, like it came from a place of pure joy…

Lisa wanted to be envious. Part of her had often been envious of beautiful women for whom joy and laughter came easy, women with fewer guards than her, less spikes. But most of her knew that envy was born more out of desire than anything—she envied women like she envied gold, covetous. It was a dual desire—to be them, and to be with them, to _be_ that majestic herself, and yet to have it _for_ herself. Lisa wanted to glitter like they did, unaffected by scars and old aches, masks and lessons, pain and survival, and could convince herself for a time that a beautiful woman by her side would make her feel like that herself.

Around Iris, it was nothing like that. There was no envy of who Iris was, of the easy beauty and laughter, of the radiant smile. Maybe there should have been, because Iris was so much _more_ than any woman that Lisa had met, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel that. Iris was too… _disarming_. That was another word that Lisa came back to, time and again.

Whenever they talked, Lisa found Iris slipping under her walls as though she had a key to a secret tunnel through them. Lisa would accidentally find herself saying something about her heists, how she’d learned to drive through sheer, visceral necessity as a lookout at 15 years old who had to hit the peddle and _go_ when something went sour. She found herself talking about skating, or else opening up about her childhood—brother, her grandfather, mother, or even her _father_ —and wanting to clamp down on the statement before Iris caught her eye and put her hand on Lisa’s with a soft, pained but understanding smile. It was as though Iris didn’t know _how_ to judge, or to hate—only to forgive, to love.

Lisa didn’t know what to do with that kind of beauty, the kind that came from within. It left her restless and awake at night, breathless and heart-beating whenever Iris walked into a room. She didn’t envy Iris—she felt something else altogether.

 

[ ]

 

They’d been talking for weeks, ever since the day of the ‘ritual’. Caitlin rolled her eyes when Iris called it that, but Cisco laughed and gave her a fistbump, and Barry refused to weigh in on the name, so… ‘ritual’ it was. They’d been talking, and meeting up, going for coffee and drinks after work, Lisa taking her shopping, Iris sharing her baking, and it had been some of the most fun Iris had had in a long time.

She would complain to Lisa about her job, let her know about whatever she was investigating, and sometimes Lisa would slip her a tip or a comment with a sly smile, ones that _always_ panned out and helped Iris get one step further on whatever story she was working on. In turn, Iris made certain she _didn’t_ write about any of the stories Lisa would share, things about her heists, the Rogues, and generally whatever Lisa would let slip that could incriminate…anyone.

“Do you… do you _dream_ about…the past? _Our_ past?” Iris asked one night, walking along the pier. It was early spring and she was wearing a thick coat, still chilly in the air, but Lisa was in just a leather jacket and looked totally comfortable.

“You mean our past selves?” Lisa said it with a smirk, like it was still unbelievable, and Iris had to agree.

“Yeah… I do, dream I mean, sometimes. And I never know—am I making this up? Did this really happen? There’s no record, no history to check." She hesitated, "sorry, if that’s awkward,” she shook her head, “don’t worry about it.”

Lisa was quiet beside her for a few minutes, and Iris let her be, without talking again. Lisa would lapse into quiet more often than anyone who didn’t know her would ever guess. She was pensive, behind the smirking and simpering masks, or _could_ be. She was also easily riled and excited, eager to please, and she was always doing things to make Iris smile—Iris knew she was, because whenever Iris _did_ smile, Lisa would get this look her face that took Iris’ breath away.

The more she learned about Lisa, the more she wanted to know. The more she learned about Lisa, the more she fell in love.

Iris wasn’t fooling herself about that. She was a romantic at heart, and while she had probably started out by romanticizing the past lives her and Lisa had shared, that would have faded weeks ago if this was only that. She had kidded herself about her feelings for Barry for years because things there were weird, and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Lisa, wasn’t going to convince herself that there were any extraneous reasons they couldn’t or shouldn’t be together, that a criminal and a cop’s daughter couldn’t find a way to fit together.

But no matter how many signals she sent to Lisa, no matter how many times Iris had invited her back to her apartment, or out for dinner somewhere that was more romantic than drinks or coffee or a walk, Lisa would come up with some excuse, have somewhere to be, or, finally, shake her head with a sad smile. So Iris stopped pushing. If Lisa didn’t want this, that was okay too, she decided. At least they would still be friends.

 

[ ]

 

The thing was, Lisa _had_ been dreaming about Iris. She’d dreamt about the other woman every damn night since their little séance. Sometimes it was dreams of their past lives, of the glimpse of a shared life they had together, and she didn’t know if they were memories or reconstructions of those visions or both. But on the nights she didn’t dream about past-Iris, she dreamt about _this_ Iris. About running her hands through Iris’s hair and pulling her close and kissing her full lips, about sighing into Iris’s neck and the smell of her perfume, of how her nails would feel against Lisa’s back or in her hair as she coaxed soft noises and whimpers of out Iris.

She had been dreaming too much, more than she cared to admit. And she felt caught between a truth and a half-truth, caught between wanting to lie, wanting to smile and tease, and wanting to pull Iris close and never let her go. It was a new position for Lisa. Lying was not normally an issue, not typically something she worried about unless her hand was forced. Vulnerability was there in honesty, and few people got to see Lisa Snart vulnerable. And no one was forcing her hand, no dire consequences from whatever truth or lie she divined, but she didn’t want to lie to Iris.

She didn’t want to lie, and she was too afraid to tell the truth.

This thing between her and Iris, it was _good_. At first, Lisa had been wary—Iris followed a woman from a past life out of STAR Labs that day, she didn’t follow Lisa out. She’d never even _spoken_ to Lisa. But she looked hopeful and Lisa wasn’t going to crush that, so why not go for coffee? But coffee turned into drinks because she liked the way Iris laughed, and Iris didn’t press, but drinks turned into weeks of getting closer, of learning that Iris _could_ be trusted with whatever Lisa let slip, and weeks turned into months of friendship and there was something different here, something she hadn’t had in a long time, maybe ever, really.

And she knew Iris felt it too, those glances, those invites, the way she wore her nicest shirts when they went out somewhere together, the way she held her breath for just a second too long when Lisa met her eyes. Lisa knew. But she also knew that Iris was chasing after a fantasy, a life that had already been lived, so she turned her down at every chance. She wanted Iris, and the tightness in her chest, the nervous warmth inside her told her she more than just wanted her, but Lisa needed to be wanted for who _she_ was, not who she had maybe once been. So it was easier this way, to turn Iris away, but to keep her close.

“I try not to dream,” she finally said with a small, probably too sad smile, when they were back at Iris’s car. The night hadn’t felt cold until that moment. “I may like gold, but I try to only dabble in things I can afford.”

 

[ ]

 

Iris was hurt. It was really only a matter of time until something stupid like this happened, all things considered, with how much time she spent around Barry and meta-humans.

She was hurt but not hurt _bad_ by any stretch. Some bruises, a few cuts and scrapes, the narrow miss of a bullet or three. She was hurt, and sore, but she was far from dead, and she’d had her own chance to help save the day, had managed to help bust the meta-human of the week, and that was a nice change, saving Barry for once. So all in all, she wouldn’t complain.

Except maybe not everyone got the memo about how not-bad she was hurt. Because they were in a less savory part of town and the Rogues had been involved thanks to this being their territory, and in the chaos, Iris getting shot at and knocked around just a _teensy_ bit had probably looked worse than it was. Or at least, that’s what she guessed, from the way Lisa had run up to her and thrown her arms around Iris the second she saw her.

“You’re _okay_ —” her voice was thick with emotion in a way Iris never really got her hear, and she held Lisa around her slender waist, tight because Lisa seemed to need it. “You’re okay.”

“I’m alright, Lise—a few bruises and scrapes, maybe a trip to Caitlin’s med room later, but the bullets didn’t hit me and I’m—”

Lisa pulled back and she was running her hands over Iris’s face, shoulders, arms, eyebrows up and then a smile, tentative and still terrified—to anyone who knew how to read her—but tinged with relief. “I saw the gunfire, I knew the Flash was too busy to save you and I—”

She had her hands on Iris’s face, cupping her jaw, and there was a moment where everything slowed, where Iris’s heartbeat shot up, and then Lisa was kissing her. Iris drew in a shocked breath, full of surprise, and then she was kissing Lisa back. Lisa was only a little taller than Iris but in those spiked heels she always wore, Iris was leaning up into the kiss, into her, hands already around her but getting tighter, pulling her closer. She’d waited _so long_ for this—a lifetime, it felt like.

Lisa pulled and drew in a breath, one hand moving to tuck Iris’s hair behind her ear with a shy smile, and Iris knew her own smile was watery but she couldn’t help how wide it was, pulling her lips into a broad grin, how her heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Finally,” she sighed.

“Umm…guys?” Barry’s voice startled them both of their little world, reminding Iris that they were in public still, that the cops were still tagging all the bad guys, that they should probably go. “When uh, when did this…?”

Iris rolled her eyes at him. “For someone so fast, you’re a little slow sometimes.”

Lisa laughed and Iris smiled all over again. They were moving apart, but Iris reached down and took Lisa’s hand. “We should probably head to STAR Labs,” she couldn’t help the hope in her voice, wanting Lisa to come with her, and the elation when Lisa nodded.

“I’ll drive.”

 

[ ]

 

Lisa couldn’t help but be nervous, unlocking the door to her apartment for Iris to follow her in. They’d talked on the drive, but not really, not enough. Lisa wanted to explain, but it would take too many words, words she didn’t have, or didn’t want to have. There were no words for her fear, her hesitation, and no words to explain just how foolish letting that fear hold her back had felt when she thought Iris might be hurt, when she thought Iris might be _gone_ and that she’d squandered her chance.

But Iris wasn’t asking for her to explain, just _smiling_. Smiling over at Lisa like everything was perfect in the world despite all the cuts and scrapes, despite Lisa’s criminal record and often-acerbic sense of humor, despite everything that should be messy. So after the all-clear from Dr. Snow, who started acting much less frosty when she saw Iris and Lisa holding hands, Lisa had tentatively invited Iris back to her apartment.

This time, Iris kissed first. She was gentler than Lisa with it—she stepped close like she was waiting for Lisa to pull away, leaned in and looked up at Lisa through her long lashes, her dark brown eyes warm with a smile, with something else too. And she let Lisa close the distance between them. She tasted like coffee and honey and lip gloss and Lisa wanted to melt into it.

They kissed until the world fell away. Lisa couldn’t stop the way she captured Iris’s lower lip between her teeth and pulled gently, couldn’t help the tight tug in her gut, the warmth between her legs when Iris let out a breathy whimper. And before she could reconsider, she was pulling Iris back with her to the bedroom, whispering softly about how beautiful Iris was, how long she’d wanted to do this, to see her like this, to share this.

The lights were low and she brushed kisses along the smooth skin of Iris’ shoulders, her neck, and swallowed back her own trepidation when Iris helped her shimmy out of her shirt. This part was always the hardest for Lisa—the moment she would let someone see the scars, the evidence of a life she didn’t care to discuss, of parts of her she would never share, the ugly history on her skin. But Iris’s eyes flicked back to hers and whatever she saw there, she was kissing Lisa a moment later, hands in her hair, until Lisa forgot all about her own scars, lost in Iris’s darker, unblemished skin, lost in the feel of it under her fingers.

She stayed lost in Iris until dawn was approaching, the whole night spent exploring and touching, mapping out constellations of moles and eliciting gasps and moans and bitten-off curses that she was surprised Iris would utter, on the edge of another orgasm, Lisa smirking from between her thighs. The whole night spent with Iris learning how ticklish she was and making Lisa laugh until she had to retaliate with a pillow, devolving into kisses all over again. Spent whispering to one another with questions and answers, secrets and smiles, until the room started to lighten and turn pink as the sun reminded them that they weren’t the only two souls in the world, though it felt like it for the night.

Lisa fell asleep at dawn, with her hand tucked around Iris’s waist and a smile on her lips.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first femslash fic and I'm pleased with how it turned out :) I had no idea that by the time I was halfway through writing this, these two would become a new OTP, but, well, here we are.
> 
> (ps - I'm sure there are typos in here that I haven't caught. I'll be re-reading this later to try and tidy stuff up, but don't hesitate to point them out if you see them!)


End file.
